Marija Kuhar Šoša

Marija Kuhar Šoša is one of the most prominent young Croatian singers, an award-winning artist who is praised for her unique voice and excellent stage performance. She studied music pedagogy and singing at the Academy of Music, University of Zagreb, in the class of Lidija Horvat Dunjko. During her studies, she won several national and international awards. As an exceptionally gifted student, she was a scholarship holder of the CEE Musiktheater, Deutsche Bank and the Croatian government. Already during her studies, she performed in productions at the Opernhaus Halle, Theatre Romea in Barcelona and later at the Teatro Vittorio Emanuelle – Messina and the National Theatre in Zagreb.

She sang many roles and performed with prominent conductors, including Zubin Mehta, with whom she opened the Julian Rachlin Festival in Dubrovnik.

She has collaborated with several orchestras and chamber ensembles: Croatian Baroque Orchestra, Zagreb Philharmonic, Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra, Croatian Radio Television Orchestra, Zadar Chamber Orchestra, Belgrade Philharmonic, Slovenian Philharmonic, North Bohemian Philharmonic, Zagreb Quartet and Croatian Chamber Orchestra.

She collaborated with important directors such as Olivier Tambosi, Arnoud Bernard, Cesare Lievi, Ivo Guerra, Maurizio Garcia Lozano, Janusz Kica, Janusz Sikora, Dora Ruždjak Podlski, Ivan Leo Lemo, Ozren Prohić and Krešimir Dolenčić.

Among the awards that Marija has received, the most important are the following: three special prizes at the International Singing Competition in Passau (DE) and the Studienauftrag at the Opera in Halle (DE); 2nd prize at the Croatian National Singing Competition in Dubrovnik; 1st prize at the Croatian Chamber Music Competition in Varaždin and Zadar; 1st prize and Special Prize of the Split Opera (Croatia) at the first Croatian opera competition Vero Vision and the Prize of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb. The Zagreb Philharmonic awarded her the Best Young Musician in Croatia in 2010.